Sunday, November 24, 2019

Sirach Listed as part of the "Writings" in the Talmud (Baba Kamma 92b)


In Baba (alt. Bava) Kamma 92b, a text in the Babylonian Talmud, we read the following:

Rabba bar Mari explains each of the sources. It is written in the Torah, as it is written: “And so Esau went to Ishmael” (Genesis 28:9). It is repeated in the Prophets, as it is written: “And there were gathered vain fellows to Yiftah, and they went out with him” (Judges 11:3). And it is triplicated in the Writings, as it is written: All fowl will live with its kind, and men with those like him (Book of Ben Sira 13:17). We learned it in a mishna (Kelim 12:2): All that is attached to that which is ritually impure is ritually impure; all that is attached to that which is ritually pure is ritually pure. And we learned it in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer says: Not for naught did the starling go to the raven but because it is its kind, as it too is a non-kosher bird. (source)

What is interesting about this text is that the book of Sirach, part of the Apocrypha is among the “Writings,” one of the three divisions of the Old Testament (the other two being the Law and the Prophets).